Business Relationship Between Andrew Carnegie And Henry Clay Frick

Competitive personalities and the excessive drive for success was the foundation of the business relationship that once existed between Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. They both exhibited extreme business practices that tied them together, but also tore them apart. Their mindset for business expansion and longevity are the theories that modern day companies can thrive to achieve. “N one was more important to the “Iron City” than Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, whose operations in the city had more than quadrupled their output in the previous decade and were now producing more than a million tons of steel each year”, (Standford, 2005).
Carnegie was born a business man. He was a bottom line leader that very rarely evaluated profits, …show more content…
Going into the situation, the tensions were already high. The union workers had to have known that the company was geared up for battle when they started to install barbed wire fences around the mill. This possibly increased tensions on their end. “Port holes with ugly mouths grimly look out upon the peaceful valley from the mill, fort, barricade, stockade, or whatever the Carnegie plant at Homestead could be called to-day, and silently bear witness that they are there, not for the peaceful purposes of steel manufacture, but for struggle and fight” (Standford, 2005).Although Carnegie denies any knowledge of the exact action that Frick was going to take, he still played his role. Frick, in personal opinion, would not have made any moves without Carnegies support. On the rebuttal end though. Frick often downplayed the circumstances in his correspondence with Carnegie. Carnegie seems to have provoked Frick to take his stand on the terms with the union. Frick was not going to back down no matter what. He wanted to prove himself. On the other end, the union was not going to back down either. They had felt they were being handed a raw deal and would not tolerate it. It seems from the text though, the workers were more anxious to go to war than Frick. Frick was prepping, but the union workers were …show more content…
They both learned to use it to their advantage in the business arena. Frick stood firm on his actions at the Homestead Strike, while Carnegie believed things would not have happened that way if he was there. In the end, Frick was furious with Carnegie’s final actions in their business relationship of having Frick pushed out of the company. Frick would never forgive him for that. They both led successful lives, and in it was extremely ironic that they both passed within a few weeks of each